


I will run away if you call my name

by trailsofpaper (Sanwall)



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, please don't take any survival tips from this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 11:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanwall/pseuds/trailsofpaper
Summary: Babe Heffron volunteers to take his friend Julian's place in the seventh Hunger Games. As he and the other tribute from District Eleven, Eugene Roe, prepare for the Games where only one can make it out alive, Babe knows he needs to keep a cool head to have a fighting chance. But Babe wears his heart on his sleeve and can only hope it won’t be used against him.





	I will run away if you call my name

 

As the entire village follows the children to see them off for the reaping, walking along the dusty road to the train station, they raise their voices in song; a working song they tend to sing during harvesting season.

 _“Here we come to a turning of the season_  
_Witness to the arc towards the sun_  
_The neighbors blessed burden within reason_  
_Becomes a burden borne of all in one_ _  
And nobody, nobody knows”_

Babe sings along, though this isn’t the version he’s most used to. He walks beside Julian, who doesn’t sing at all, but nudges him in the side and whispers:

“I’m so nervous I feel like I’m gonna piss myself.”

Babe pulls at the itchy collar of the dress shirt that’s at least one size too wide but still short in the cuffs, feels like he’s going to choke in it. But he whispers back:

“You’re fine, Jules. You haven’t been picked so far, have you?”

Julian grins then, and his face transforms. They’d like him in the Capitol, Babe thinks  - he’s pretty and charming, looks a little devious when he smiles. The very opposite of Babe himself - awkward and tall, with red hair and a red, runny nose, always looking out of place.

Babe’s eighteen which means his name is entered seven times. Julian’s only seventeen, but his name is in there a lot more times. The bad conscience gnaws at Babe, but he tries to keep his chin up and not to let it show, because making Julian smile makes him happy.

Babe knows he’s lucky. He’s never had to enter his name in exchange for tesserae, like he knows Julian has. The Heffron family is well provided for by Babe’s merchant father, and his many sons have been out in the fields, helping to provide for District Eleven. Babe remembers how outraged his parents had been when the Capitol had announced the Hunger Games, and that no boys between the age of twelve and eighteen were exempt -  in fact, Babe had just turned old enough to be entered into the first reaping.

Babe hadn’t had the sense to object. The reaping was just something that happened - a school event, like a standardized test - some stranger was chosen, and Babe watched the Games with a child’s understanding, the deaths somehow abstract. But last year, one of the tributes had been chosen from their neighboring village - and poor Miller hadn’t lasted long, Babe knows, because it was the first time he’d paid attention. It’s settled in his stomach as a roiling worry.

It’s easier to be calm after the train ride, once all of them are gathered - all of the eligible District Eleven children, in a huge, sectioned auditorium - rows upon rows of people, so many that the risk of being chosen is vanishingly small. Babe settles into parade rest, elbowing Julian in the side to make him grouse. They’re so caught up in horsing around that they don’t realize the draw has started, and they only still when the rest of the people around them fall into an unnatural hushed silence.

“The first tribute,” calls the Capitol presenter whose name Babe never bothered to learn. “John Julian!”

It feels like the floor has given way under Babe, and he can only imagine what Julian feels. He’s white as a sheet, and Babe wants to hug him, keep him back, because it isn’t fair - it shouldn’t happen. The odds weren’t in his favor. Julian _cannot_ make his way down through the crowd to the podium and leave his family, all his siblings - that’s not something Babe can live with.

So he squeezes Julian’s arm to keep him from stepping out of the line, and with a voice so steady it surprises himself, Babe says:

“I volunteer.”

* * *

The other tribute from District Eleven is a boy Babe’s own age - Eugene Roe. He’s even paler than Babe is, which is unusual from this district, and no one volunteers for him. He talks funny - he’s from the southernmost part of the district, Babe learns, a place he calls the Bayou. The name means nothing at all to Babe, whose village is so far north it might as well be District Three, with District Twelve only a stone’s throw to the east .

They look at each other, among all the other tributes from all the other districts, and Babe knows that they need to stick together if they want to have a chance to make it to the arena and survive the bloodbath. Babe has picked up enough manners from his merchant father to also pick up on the social cues in the tumultuous Capitol, and Roe - Roe comes from an apothecary family, Babe thinks. He doesn’t say as much, but he knows all about plants and herbs and taking care of wounds, and to Babe he might as well be magic.

All Babe can do is make the audience laugh, and hope it will get him sponsors that can keep him alive.

When they’re rolled out in their chariots to be presented to the Capitol, Babe is so terrified that his hand instinctively reaches for Roe’s, the way he’d sometimes reached for Julian’s when he’s scared or just wants support. He catches himself a second too late, but then, to his surprise, Roe closes his fingers around Babe’s hand. Babe meets his gaze, looks into those big, dark eyes of his, and the crowd roars their approval. The both of them are wearing flower crowns.

After the presentation, their mentor grabs them by the shoulder, one hand on each, and Carwood Lipton’s grip is like a vise. He’s built like an oak tree, Babe thinks. Sturdy and broad, but with the promise of beauty in the summer.

“Good play,” he says seriously, and his eyes are sad. “Keep up the camaraderie for the cameras, make pretend.”

Babe knows he means they’ll have to kill each other later, if someone else doesn’t get to it first.

But there’s no make pretend to the camaraderie that springs up between them. Roe is quiet and sweet, and Babe can make him smile when he jokes, and Babe wants to cling to that shred of humanity between them, in this place. It might be all he has left, after the battering of the superficial beauty and underlying barbarism of the Capitol and the Games.

They don’t have a lot of time to get to know each other and keep up the camaraderie though - in between the training and the preparations to be introduced into high society and to the entirety of Panem, they barely get enough time to sleep. For the first time in Babe’s life, he goes to sleep alone in a room and it’s almost unbearable. He finds Roe at breakfast with matching bruises under his eyes, and Babe wishes they didn’t sit on opposite sides of the table.

“This the kind of food you get down in the Bayou?” Babe asks and holds up a bread roll dipped in melted butter that is miles above anything they’ve ever managed to make on their meagre grain rations back home.

“Naw,” Roe says without looking up from his hot chocolate. “We make food that’d burn your mouth off.”

“Why would you make that?” Babe asks, genuinely confused. At this, Roe looks up at him for just a second.

“It’s good,” he says. “It makes you feel alive.”

Babe feels plenty alive. He reaches out with a foot under the table, to nudge Roe’s leg. When Roe smiles, Babe grins back. He likes feeling alive like this.

* * *

He clings to every scrap of advice Lip can give them. As the days wear on, Babe feels an itch under his skin - he needs to learn how to fight. He _wants_ to learn how to fight; he’s not going to give up without one.

“How’d that happen?” he asks, walking up to Lip in the training center. Babe’s hair  is plastered to his skull from the sweat of trying to build up muscle, and he’s breathing heavily. He nods at the prominent, two-pronged scar on Lip’s cheek.

“Shrapnel from an explosion,” Lip replies curtly and wipes a thumb over it. “Not nearly as bad as the one that almost shot off my nards.”

Involuntarily, Babe flinches. Lip doesn’t offer an elaboration and Babe doesn’t ask for it, instead he swallows and says:

“I want to know how to fight.”

Lip nods once and turns on his heel to walk away. Babe is stunned enough by this act to stay put, but then he sees Lip walk up to the District Two mentor. The District Two mentor is a lean, dark figure you wouldn’t look at twice but if you did, you’d take a step backwards to protect yourself. Babe certainly does when the man whips his head to the side, evidently listening to what Lip is telling him but his eyes locking onto Babe with an intensity that sets Babe’s teeth on edge.

Lip beckons him over, and Babe goes, even though he very much feels like prey in the way of a predator, with the way the man looks at him.

“Edward,” Lip says, and Babe starts, still thrown off guard by the use of his formal first name. “This is Ron Speirs. There’s no one better to teach you how to fight.”

“Why would you help me?” Babe asks and wets his lips. Speirs regards him with those eyes, dark but so completely unlike Roe’s.

“If my tributes die because of something I manage to teach you in three days, they don’t deserve to win,” he says. At the time, the words hit Babe like a gut punch - it’s only later that he starts to think that maybe Speirs didn’t mean it like that. Maybe Speirs meant it like it’s Babe who deserves to win.

Babe doesn’t think he deserves to win. Speirs tells him to do his worst, and there’s a glint in his eye that spells disaster, even before Babe launches himself into a clumsy attack. Speirs has him pinned to the mat with an arm across his windpipe in two seconds flat, and Babe will never forget the hoarse words Speirs presses to his ear:

“Your greatest weapon is yourself. Don’t let anyone else use you.”

Later, Babe sees Speirs hover around Roe, his feral demeanour giving way to something curious but no less predatory. As Babe watches Speirs whisper something in Roe’s ear, sees Roe’s beautiful eyes widen just a fraction, he feels a vicious stab in his gut that he can’t quite place.

Maybe Speirs is telling Roe to use Babe. Babe thinks he wouldn’t mind, if it was Roe who used him.

* * *

That night, Babe can’t fall asleep no matter how he tosses and turns. He’s used to sharing his bed with at least one of his brothers, possibly two, and having the bed all to himself was something reserved for when he was sick.  He longs desperately for his mother, who used to sit with him when he was little and delirious with the fever, smoothing back his hair and singing until he fell back asleep. It was the working song she used to sing, but in her soft voice it turned into a lullaby. Babe throws off his blanket and tries to remember how it goes.

 _And nobody, nobody knows_  
_Let the yoke fall from our shoulders_  
_Don't carry it all don't carry it all_  
_We are all our hands in holders_ _  
Beneath this bold and brilliant sun_

He gives up and gets up. He half expects his bedroom door to be locked - they keep such great care of their precious tributes here - but it’s not. He’s out roaming the halls like a ghost in the stories him and his brothers used to tell each other, under their blankets after lights out.

Well, he says lights, but there really was only the one candle that his mother only used when she had to repair their clothes for the next day. Babe liked to sit at her feet and help her, if she needed it.

There’s no one to help here, and Babe keeps walking, half-expecting someone to pop out of a doorway to tell him to go back to his room. No one does, but when Babe hears the sound of hushed voices from the lounge area where they’re allowed to relax in between training and interviews, he steers toward it anyway.

Some instinct keeps him from announcing himself though. He treads lightly, stops just outside the doorway to listen. He makes out Lip’s voice almost immediately, even though the soft cadence of it is uncharacteristic. The other voice takes a lot longer to place, until Babe recalls how it had rasped a whisper into his ear earlier that very day.

It’s Speirs.

“- they don’t stand much of a chance, do they?” Lip is saying, and Babe’s heart drops into his stomach.

“It’s not always about who’s the best at killing,” Speirs replies in a voice that’s almost kind, and Babe thinks that’s why it took him so long to place it. “Sometimes it’s about the will to survive.”

“I’m not sure that’ll be enough,” Lip says, and his voice is suddenly muffled, like he’s pressed something against his mouth as he speaks. Babe frowns, trying his damndest to figure out what’s happening. Speirs’ voice is as clear as before when he says:

“It was for you.”

“That was then.”

It doesn’t make much sense to Babe - Speirs and Lip are both too old to have participated in the Games. He can’t imagine what they’re talking about, and then they both fall silent. Babe can’t contain his curiosity. He shifts and peeks around the doorframe. He finds Lip and Speirs in the middle of the lounge, caught in an embrace so intimate it takes Babe’s brain a second to register.

Oh.

Babe pushes away from the door, doesn’t care that he’s making noises when he stumbles back up the hall. Speirs and Lip are lovers, and suddenly it burns behind Babe’s eyelids. He never got the chance to have a lover and he never will - he’s not a killer, he’s not even a survivor. He’s not making it out of that arena. And even if he did - Babe can’t imagine what Speirs and Lip have been through, to come out on the other side and be able to find each other.

It’s all too much, and before Babe knows what he’s doing, he’s stumbling through the door to Roe’s room. Roe bolts upright in his bed, and Babe has time to wonder if he’s been asleep at all, before he says:

“What are you doing, Heffron?”

“I can’t sleep,” Babe says, and his words seem to echo in the room. Roe doesn’t say anything, he just shifts on the bed, lifts the covers a little. Babe blinks, can’t believe what Roe is offering.

“Well, come on,” Roe says, and Babe thinks there’s an inflection of humour in his drawl. “Haven’t got all night here.”

So Babe swallows and crawls into bed with Roe, and it’s an incredible and instant relief that floods through Babe, to be pressed up against another warm body.

Roe arranges the cover over them, turns on his side so they’re looking at each other in the darkness.

“I’m used ta sleeping in the same bed as my brothers,” Babe murmurs into the silence between them. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to make that clear, but Roe whispers back:

“There was only one bed in our home, between the three of us.”

“Tell me about your parents,” Babe asks and shifts a little, tangling their legs together. He’s never done that with his brothers, but if feels good, and Roe only burrows closer.

“You first, Heffron” Roe says.

“No one calls me Heffron,” Babe says with a chuckle that surprises him.

“Edward, then,” Roe says, and he’s put on a terrible parody of a Capitol accent that makes Babe burst out laughing so loud that he has to turn his face into the pillow to muffle it. The pillow smells like Roe.

“No, that’s worse,” Babe says, when he’s capable of speech again. “Everyone calls me Babe.”

“Babe,” Roe repeats, and his voice is so soft and warm that it sends a shiver down Babe’s spine. He decides to tell Roe everything he can about his parents and his brothers.

At some point, they both drift off, and when Babe wakes up, Roe’s nose is pressed against his shoulder and his entire left arm is asleep and he never wants to move. He does move though, he has to get back to his own room before anyone else comes in, but when Babe steps out into the corridor, Lip is there as if he’s been waiting.

He grabs Babe by the scruff of his neck and Babe wonders what would happen if he would die before the Games. Would they send for another tribute or would Roe be the only one representing District Eleven?

“When I said to be close, I didn’t mean this close,” Lip growls and Babe cowers. “You can’t let your heart take over like this, Edward. Attachment is a weakness in these Games.”

“I know,” Babe says, and he does. He’s just never been good at that whole common sense thing. “Doesn’t seem to stop you, though.”

Lip lets go of Babe’s neck, and he looks like Babe has actually managed to land a punch during training. Surprised and even a little hurt.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lip says before he turns and walks away. Babe has to concede that he probably doesn’t.

* * *

The final interview has Babe so nervous he’s about to throw up. District Eleven is next to last and out of the two of them Roe is up first, and before he walks out, he looks back over his shoulder. He meets Babe’s gaze, and Babe thinks he tries to get Roe to stay. His panic has to be shining out through his eyes.

Roe’s lips quirk into the barest hint of a smile, as if to tell Babe to chin up. So he does.

“So do you think you’ll emerge a victor?” he’s asked when it’s his turn up on the podium in front of the cameras, and Babe grins and lies:

“I have to think that, don’t I?”

“What will give you an edge in the Game, do you think?”

Babe shrugs and thinks about that little quirk of Roe’s lips, the smell of him on his pillow.

“I like being alive,” he says, which is true. The audience laughs, and Babe manages to muster up another smile.

* * *

“Tell me about your home,” Roe asks, the last night, when they’ve snuck onto the barricaded roof of the training center to look out over the shining city.

Babe shivers in the cold wind, presses his shoulder up against Roe’s.

“The winters are cold and the summers are hot,” he says and smiles. “I love to jump in the piles of leaves in the fall.”

Roe makes a noise and presses back.

“We never get no winters,” he says. “It’s hot all the time, but sometimes it rains.”

“Hard to believe we’re from the same district,” Babe says and glances at the other boy, the soft fringe of black hair over a pale forehead. He wishes he could smooth it away, but he remembers Lip grabbing him by the scruff of his neck like he’d been a bad dog, staring him down and chewing him out.

Babe knows he can’t let his heart take over, but it feels like it’s too late for that.

* * *

Later Babe would think that discussion on the Capitol rooftop was prophetic, of a sort. In the few moments before the seventh Hunger Games begin, he wonders if he’s ever seen the tributes having gloves with their black suits when they’re in the arena, and then he’s thrust up and out into air so cold the insides of his nostrils seem to freeze when he inhales. He recovers quickly, flips up the collar of his black suit and readies himself to sprint for the Cornucopia. Forget about weapons, he needs to get his hands on clothes, tools and gear if he wants to have a chance to survive.

So as soon as the gong rings, Babe’s off, and he’s run through enough fields, summer and winter, chasing his brothers, being chased by his brothers, to make quick work of the distance even in the snow that reaches halfway up his calves. He snags a roll of tarpaulin and from the corner of his eye he sees another tribute - a burly, muscular boy from District One - approach much too quickly for his taste. Babe snags a backpack, praying it will be useful because it’s heavy, and takes the precious moment to put it on and wedge the tarpaulin between the straps and his body before he takes off running again, making a beeline for the huge fir trees that ring the clearing with the Cornucopia. He can’t spare a thought for Roe, but his heart clenches when he thinks about how he didn’t even catch a glimpse of him back there. Everytime a cannon shot goes off to signal the death of a tribute, his pulse seem to stutter painfully.

He remembers what Lip said about attachment being a weakness, but Babe’s always known he was weak where it counted.

Instincts Babe didn’t know he had makes him move in between the trees, searching for places where the trees have shielded the ground from snow. Treading on the yellow needles won’t leave a trail for anyone to follow, and Babe finally slows down. As his heartbeat calms and the rushing of his pulse in his ears recedes, he becomes aware of how oppressively silent his surroundings are.

He knows enough from watching the previous games that peace and quiet are treacherous. When he grows thirsty, he grabs a fistful of snow and lets it melt on his tongue. It tastes cold, almost metallic, but at least he doesn’t have to worry about dehydration - he remembers a Game set in a sweltering desert, and his eyes tear up just thinking about how quickly the tributes had dropped in the heat. He becomes aware of a gnawing hunger as the day wears on, and stops to pull pine needles off a branch to chew on. He doesn’t think it’ll sustain him for long, but it makes the hole in his stomach close up a little. He hears what he thinks are two more cannon shots signalling death, but he’s not sure. The snow muffles a lot of sounds.

When dusk starts to fall, Babe finds a clearing that is set a little higher than the surrounding grounds. He sets his backpack down to examine the contents - a water bottle that he fills with snow to let melt under his jacket, a packet of nutritious crackers that Babe has to shove back down quickly before he eats all of them at once, a book of matches, and a length of rope that Babe immediately wants to use to set a trap to catch an animal to eat. His brain catches up with him a second later - even if he caught an animal, he’d have no way to skin it or cook it.

Babe hadn’t felt the cold as long as he was moving. Now that he’s stopped, it starts to creep in and he looks at the box of matches longingly. A fire would be heavenly, but it would give him away immediately - and besides, he doesn’t have firewood. What he does is remember his grandfather telling him the winter just before he died, when the snow fell in thick white sheets from an ironclad sky, that snow is isolating and that lots of animals survive by burrowing under it.

So Babe uses the side of the hill to scoop up snow, build a sort of shelter of it in which he plans to roll up inside his tarpaulin and hope it will keep his body heat. He’s worked up a sweat under his clothes, and he worries about it chilling him to the bone if he stops moving, when he hears the sound of footsteps through the snow.

Babe freezes, because he’s out in the open without a weapon. He’d been planning on staying away, counting on the fact that no one would think him a threat big enough to warrant following. When he turns around, he sees none other than Roe approaching. He has a knife in hand and a bag slung over his shoulder, and Babe feels like he could cry, because for all he knows Roe is here to kill him.

“I almost thought I’d lost you,” Roe says by way of greeting, and Babe feels like his knees are about to give out.

“I suppose you found me again,” Babe replies, willing his teeth not to chatter. All of Panem is watching him. He needs to look strong.

“When you volunteered I remember thinking, just before my own name was picked in the reaping, that you’d be easy to spot in the games,” Roe says, with a hint of that smile. “Your red hair shines like a beacon, Heffron.”

Self-conscious, Babe pulls a hand over his hair. His ears are cold.

“Thought I told you not to call me that,” he says, and he sees Roe purse his lips and sweep his eyes upward, pointedly. Babe catches his meaning - they’re being watched and nothing they say to each other will be confidential. Always being watched.

“With that knife, you can kill me any time you want,” Babe says, and Roe flinches. “What do you say to teaming up?”

Roe nods and tucks the knife away in his belt before he approaches. The bag across his shoulder turns out to be a sleeping bag, and they agree to both crawl up inside it, inside the snowbank Babe’s made, taking turns to stay awake. Before they get that far, the sky lights up with a broadcast, playing the Panem anthem, before displaying the faces of each tribute that didn’t survive the first day.

Heart in his throat, Babe counts the faces and he realizes their competition has been all but halved in a day. He should feel relief, elated that he’s this much closer to surviving, but he can’t. Not when he knows there’s no way he can get out if the boy beside him in the snowbank gets out.

“I’ll take first watch,” Babe whispers, and Roe nods again, before he tucks into the sleeping bag so deep only the tip of his nose peeks out.

* * *

As soon as the oppressive darkness gives way to the first hint of dawn, Roe wakes Babe by prodding him in the thigh.

“I laid some traps yesterday,” he murmurs, his mouth only an inch from Babe’s. Babe doesn’t think the cameras could possibly catch them, under the layer of snow and tarpaulin and sleeping bag, but it doesn’t pay to underestimate the power of the Capitol. He doesn’t lean in for a kiss.

“Think you coulda caught something?” Babe says and can’t help but grin when Roe tries to shrug. They’re warm inside the sleeping bag, but Babe still feels stiff from the cold outside their burrow.

They make it out of the sleeping bag, and Babe hands Roe a cracker while he rolls it up. They collapse their snow burrow so no one can see what they’ve done, and they’re on their way to check Roe’s traps. Babe does what he did on the chariot - he reaches out a hand, and he smiles when Roe grabs it while they walk.

They’re both startled by several cannon shots in short succession - they sound far away, but still Babe clutches Roe’s hand a little closer, and Roe squeezes back encouragingly before they keep walking.

It’s Roe who sees it first.

“Look,” he says softly and pulls his hand from Babe’s to point to the silvery parachute singling down between the pines, carrying a gift from the Capitol. Warning bells ring in Babe’s head - another tribute must be close, because who’d want to sponsor the two of them? But the forest is quiet as death around them, and while that thought is unnerving in and of itself, they approach the package carefully.

Inside is a whole packet of six nutrition bars - one of these ought to last them an entire day, if they’re careful. Babe looks at Roe, who looks just as incredulous as Babe feels.

“Why’d they sponsor us like this?” Roe asks, in a quiet voice that echoes the same trepidation Babe feels. There has to be a catch.

“Do you think- do you think maybe they like us teaming up?” Babe says, and there’s nothing feigned about the shyness in his voice. Roe’s eyebrows shoot up, in an uncharacteristic display of unbridled surprise, and Babe almost wants to laugh.

“Maybe” he concedes, and Babe thinks that no matter if the Capitol likes it or not, he’s glad they did team up. So he takes Roe’s hand again and gently tugs him along.

Roe’s traps yield no more than one unlucky rabbit. Babe takes Roe’s knife to its throat and skins it, thinking that this is his first kill in this arena, and that he wishes it could be his last. Roe watches, wide eyed, as Babe prepares the thing.

“If you make the fire, we can cook it,” he says and throws him the packet of matches from his backpack, after he’s wiped the blood from his hands in the snow. “Better not to wait until it’s dark.”

But the days in this wintry land are short, and it’s dusk by the time they get the rabbit on a spit, and Babe keeps looking over his shoulder, afraid that the glow of the fire will attract the other tributes. Then, nightfall, snowfall, and the anthem of Panem is broadcast over the darkened sky together with the faces of the fallen, dotted by the snowflakes singling down. With his heart in his throat, Babe does the math, and realizes their opposition has shrunk down to no more than nine - not counting Roe. Babe doesn’t think the Games have ever gone through tributes this fast, and he wonders if maybe the cold has been more difficult than the gamemakers had anticipated.

Babe moves to stamp out the fire, but he does it regretfully because the both of them have grown cold while standing still, and the fire had been a relief. He thinks that maybe he has a chance after all. He barely thinks that maybe he doesn’t want that chance, not if that means that Roe-

And then, before he can think the thought to its conclusion, the silent surroundings explode into the cacophony of a fight, the sound of Roe shouting out a warning and then bodies colliding. Babe turns around in a flurry of snow, sees a boy that has tackled Roe to the ground and hopes wildly that Roe stabs the bastards quick.

But then Babe realizes he still has the knife - that Roe is unarmed and unprotected, and Babe doesn’t know if he ever made the conscious decision to dash through the falling snow, but he thuds into the attacker with all the force that he can muster, knife held up but close to his body, pointing outward.

Babe hears the breath as it leaves the boy’s body, a painful hiss between clenched teeth, and he wrenches the boy off Roe, using the knife and his other hand to do it. He tears the stab wound open as he does so, sending a wide, hot spray of blood over the both of them, but the attacker is off Roe and doesn’t move. The echoing cannon shot confirms it, and so Babe spares him no further thought. Instead he looks down at Roe, to make sure he’s all right.

He’s not all right.

The attacker had used a knife of his own - a nasty thing with a serrated edge. Babe can see that, because it’s not buried all the way to the hilt in Roe’s side, but it’s damn near close. Automatically, Babe reaches for it to pull it out, but Roe hisses a warning.

“Don’t,” he says. His breathing is labored. “If you pull it out, it’ll start bleeding.”

“But it can’t stay there!” Babe says, and he realizes his voice is close to breaking with hysteria. Roe’s hand finds his, and with a start Babe realizes he’s never put his gloves back on after skinning the rabbit.

“We don’t have anything to stop the bleeding,” Roe says, and how he can manage to sound this calm, Babe can’t understand. He clutches at Roe’s hand like he’s the one dying, and he asks:

“What can I do?”

“Keep me warm,” Roe commands, and Babe is loath to leave him, but he does, to build another snow shelter around the area of the fire, where it’s melted the snow off the ground, and it breaks his heart but he helps Roe move onto the tarp under the shelter so he won’t lie directly on the ground. It’s night now, but the snowfall has given way to clear moonlight that reflects off the snow, making it easy to see.

They don’t dare throw the sleeping bag on top, for fear of jostling the knife, and Babe curls in around Roe, as close as he can, in an effort to do as he told and keep him warm.

“Stay with me, Roe,” Babe says and tries to sound lighthearted, but doesn’t quite hit the mark. Roe’s lips twitch like he wants to smile but can’t muster up the energy.

“Babe,” he says, and Babe turns to him with his entire body. Roe blinks at him, slow. “Call me Eugene.”

“Eugene,” Babe repeats, and he can’t stop himself from reaching out and stroking a cold finger down Eugene’s cheek. He just wants to feel skin against his, and Roe’s eyes flutter shut as he breathes in, shakily.

“Talk to me Babe,” Eugene says, without opening his eyes. “Don’t let me fall asleep.”

“I don’t know what to talk about,” Babe says helplessly and strokes Eugene’s cheek again.

“Then sing,” Eugene commands, and Babe opens his mouth, unable to disobey.

“I can’t sing very well,” he starts, but then he clears his throat and sings the working song his mother used to sing as a lullaby:

 _“Buried wreath of trillium and ivy_  
_Laid upon the body of the boy_  
_Lazy will the long come from its hiding_ _  
Return his quiet certitude to the soil”_

“I like the way you sing,” Eugene says quietly, still without opening his eyes. Babe is about to reply when he hears the soft thud of a parachute landing, just outside their shelter. He scrambles out as carefully as he can, and grabs for the gift. He opens it with stiff and shivering fingers, and his heart skips a beat when he finds medical supplies inside - pads to stop bleeding and tape to stitch a wound together.

“I guess they liked my singing in the Capitol,” Babe jokes as he scoots back inside the shelter. Eugene blinks at him - it seems to require a gargantuan effort on his part. Babe shows him the gift from their sponsors, and then hurries to help Eugene as he tries to sit up.

All color has drained from Eugene’s face as he quietly instructs Babe on what to do - he needs to cut away the fabric first of all, and so he does while Eugene grits his teeth. And then he grips the handle of the knife himself and instructs Babe to help him pull it out.

Babe thinks he’d never be as strong as Eugene is, not in a million years. They don’t have a million years, they don’t even have a minute, because as soon as the knife is out, Babe has to press the pad against the wound as much as he can, and then throw it away when it’s soaked through and put the next one on. The second one doesn’t soak quite as fast, and when he applies the third, Eugene nods approvingly.

“Get ready to use the tape,” Eugene says. “Cut three strips and put them across, like stitches.”

Babe does, and then he presses the fourth and last pad on top, before the uses the remains of Eugene’s shirt to bandage his torso.

“There,” Babe says and pats Eugene’s uninjured side gently. “As good as new.”

This time, Eugene manages to flash him a full smile, and Babe feels like he’s out of breath with how beautiful he is when he smiles. Babe crawls out to retrieve the jacket of the boy he - I killed him, Babe thinks as he woodenly turns the body over to peel the jacket and shirt off the boy who lies, pale and lifeless, in the blood-spattered snow. That boy is dead, but Eugene is still alive, so he brings him the extra clothes and crawls back inside and helps him get into them, so he won’t be cold.

“Thank you Babe,” Eugene says, and his smile dims as he casts his eyes down.

“What?” Babe asks, also smiling, because Eugene looks a lot better. There has to be something healing in the pads, some Capitol engineered medicine. Eugene looks up again, solemn, and says:

“You oughta leave me to die.”

“I won’t,” Babe says, immediately and fervently. He puts his hand to Eugene’s cheek, cradles his face and before he can think too long on it, Babe presses his lips to Eugene’s mouth.

Eugene kisses like he talks, softly but with precision. Babe even thinks there’s a hint of his lilting accent in the lazy way he presses his tongue against Babe’s, as if inviting more. Neither of them have the energy though, and after nudging Eugene’s nose with his own, Babe settles down beside him.

“Sleep,” he murmurs. “I’ll keep watch.”

But Eugene doesn’t settle. He turns gingerly, to lie on his uninjured side and to look directly into Babe’s eyes.

“What?” Babe breathes, and Eugene blinks, and shifts his arm so his hand is obscuring his mouth.

“Holding hands  and singing to me gets us a gift, but not kissing.”

Something cold twists in Babe’s gut. Attachment is a weakness. Don’t let yourself be used.

“That’s not what I was doing,” he protests, weakly. Eugene’s dark eyes are unfathomable this close.

“No?” he says, and his voice is painfully gentle. “Me neither.”

And with that, Eugene succumbs to exhaustion, and Babe is left keeping watch with an aching heart and a roiling stomach. He doesn’t want the day to dawn.

* * *

But dawn has never heeded Babe’s wishes, and it arrives with the merciless rising of the sun on a clear sky so blue it hurts to look at. Whatever medicine was in the gift must have worn off during the night, because when Eugene opens his eyes they’re glazed and febrile, and he won’t stop shivering even though Babe zips the sleeping bag tight around him. Babe can’t bring himself to leave him, so he makes Eugene eat a nutrition bar and eats flavorless strips of cold rabbit himself.

“Get up and move,” Eugene tells him, even as his voice shake. “You need to keep warm.”

And Babe does - he wears grooves in the snow around the clearing, he pauses to drag the corpse of the boy he killed away. He refuses to look at his - its face. The body is stiff as a plank, and Babe doesn’t know if it makes the task harder or easier. He pauses in among the trees, and then he starts shuffling snow atop the body until it’s completely covered. He turns to leave, but then the turns back and breaks two branches off an old birch. Babe has seen old graveyards, from before the war, and though he doesn’t know the meaning of it, he lays the branches down in a cross atop the small mound.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and thinks of the working song his mother sang to him as a lullaby. He doesn’t sing it to the boy he killed, but he nods and then trudges back along his own tracks in the snow, back to Eugene.

Eugene is still shivering, but now he’s also muttering. Babe wipes the black hair from his shining forehead, and he thinks he might have to take a look at the wound in his side, but he doesn’t want to. He makes Eugene drink melted snow from his flask.

Again, the day is short and as dusk falls, the anthem of Panem plays. Babe feels a tugging in his stomach, a repulsion that reverberates throughout his body. He sees the faces of the fallen tributes, wonders how they died. There are so many of them, and he counts them dutifully, checks it against the list in his head of the twenty four tributes that were sent into the arena.

He looks at the shape of Eugene, sleeping again, but fitfully, inside the shelter he’s built.

And with a start, having counted, Babe realizes they’re the only one’s left. Just the two of them in this frozen wasteland, and he wonders if the Capitol meant for this to happen. For Babe to win by killing the other tribute from his district, with whom he’d struck up a friendship, who he had kissed.

The cruelty is too much to bear.

You oughta leave me to die, Eugene had said. He could. Babe could walk away and let Eugene succumb to his wound, to starvation or dehydration, and he wouldn’t have to bear the guilt of it being his fault. But Babe knows that’s not how it works, and he knows in his heart he could never leave Eugene like that.

At the same time, he knows only one of them can leave the arena. He wonders what will happen if Babe refuses to kill Eugene; instead keeping him alive inside this frozen world until all resources run out and they both starve to death. What would happen then?

Babe crawls back inside the shelter, which startles Eugene awake.

“What’s happening,” he mumbles, quietly, and Babe gathers him into his lap and starts stroking Eugene’s hair. He settles down with a soft sigh, and Babe’s heart aches.

“Nothing,” he says and looks at Eugene’s knife lying at his feet. “Go back to sleep.

And he sings the rest of the working song, like his mother had, as a lullaby:

 _“So raise a glass to turnings of the season_  
_And watch it as it arcs towards the sun_  
_And you must bear your neighbor's burden within reason_ _  
And your labors will be borne when all is done.”_

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the Easy Co Trooper Summer Fic Exchange, dedicated to @kuurihn!
> 
> This is set in the Hunger Games universe, but in a time long past - a historical Hunger Games AU, if you like. The way I see it, they haven’t quite worked out all the kinks in the Games yet (they don’t take away the dead bodies, they don’t have in-game engineered disasters), so rest assured, I’m aware where this fic doesn’t match up with established Hunger Games canon. I figure they found a way to erase this one from the history books.
> 
> I read the prompted genre of “songfic” and “angst”, and I listened to the suggested songs provided, but I’m a contrary soul and the songs I actually used are HAIM’s _Running If You Call My Name_ for the title, and then The Decemberists’ _Don’t Carry It All_ (although the Of Monsters and Men albums provide an excellent soundtrack to this fic). But I mean, this is definitely angst. Mostly angst.
> 
> If you want to imagine a lighter ending, Babe pulls a Katniss and tells the Gamemakers he'll kill himself if Roe dies, and when they're both picked up, they make a break for it and go hide out in the Bayou where no one can find them.


End file.
